SCIENCE OF RECTITUDE AS DISTINCT FROM EXPEDIENCE. 127 
instincts, seeing that individual happiness largely depends 
upon social solidarity, have a prior claim to consideration. 
But let it be granted that, having balanced this gratification 
against the sacrifice it necessitates, and being of opinion that 
it has turned the scale, he chooses to throw away the 
remainder of his life “or the sake of the pleasure he hopes 
to experience during the few days in which he will be 
awaiting death; on the extravagant supposition that this 
is the motive which overcomes his reluctance to die, who 
would respect it? Who would be able to recognise in it a 
testimony to the truth he had been maintainng? No advo- 
cate of the religion of expedience, whose practice consistently 
illustrates his teaching, can seal his testimony with his blood ; 
by no possibility can the doctrine have a noble army of 
martyrs; none of its preachers could be enrolled in such a 
company without betraying their cause and becoming rene- 
ades. 
We are still, then, waiting to be informed what that science 
is which resolves moral obligation mto expedience, and 
having assumed this to be the fundamental principle of 
human action, expects us to ascertain it from the standpoint 
of Agnosticism relatively to a life to come. A speculation 
which, as thus appears to be the case, must of necessity be 
hazy, a theory about something which does not admit of 
being brought to the focus of a definite and certain meaning, 
is surely misnamed a Science. If the term is to be fitly 
applied, we must find for expedience an ultimate and stable 
foundation, and to this the title must be transferred. The 
principle we have to look for is seemingly not far to seek, 
for the human conscience, unless labouring under some 
radical misconception in persistently assigning to one or the 
other of the two categories, Right and Wrong, every morally 
significant action, evidently points it out. What we have 
now to ascertain is, whether the phenomena in which this 
kind of discrimination appears, are such as render possible a 
Science of Rectitude. 
Now, seeing that it is in something which had no origin 
that every originated form of being subsists, it is manifest 
the latter can nowhere find a standpoint whence, nor ever 
exercise intelligence wherewith, it could possibly discover in 
the attributes or operations of the former anything that 
might be pronounced faulty, anything that might be held to 
warrant the reflection “this ought not to be.” In the judg- 
ment of every thoughtful person of sound mind, these attri- 
butes and operations are of necessity above criticism: he 
